All of our children are in this together
California lawmakers have followed suit with doctors and others in the state of California
fed up with anti-vaxxing mentality, and have voted to end "personal belief exemptions" which allowed parents to opt out of
immunizations for their children for non-medical reasons.
The measure passed the California Assembly on a 46-30 vote, with two Republicans joining the Democratic majority.
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As The Associated Press notes, the measure "would give California one of the nation's strictest vaccine laws by striking the state's personal belief exemption. Only children with serious health issues would be allowed to opt out of mandatory vaccine schedules. Unvaccinated children would need to be homeschooled."
The numbers are there. California has seen vaccination
rates dropping to unhealthy levels.
More than a quarter of schools in California have measles-immunization rates for kindergarteners that are below the 92 to 94 percent the C.D.C. says is needed to maintain so-called herd immunity.
Two other states with comparably strict immunization laws are Mississippi and West Virginia. Those two states have other issues to deal with but vaccinating their children is
not one of those problems.
Mississippi has the highest vaccination rate for school-age children. It’s not even close. Last year, 99.7 percent of the state’s kindergartners were fully vaccinated. Just 140 students in Mississippi entered school without all of their required shots.
Compare that with California, epicenter of the ongoing Disney measles outbreak, where last year almost 8 percent of kindergartners — totaling 41,000 children — failed to get the required immunizations against mumps, measles and rubella. In Oregon, that number was 6.8 percent. In Pennsylvania, it was nearly 15 percent, or 22,700 kindergartners. And each of these states has suffered measles outbreaks in the last two years.
Now the bill will head to the California Senate and then Governor Jerry Brown's desk for signature.